


i thought i'd traveled a long way (but i had circled the same old sin)

by brokenspaces



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Canon-Typical Violence, Fabian Talks To An Inanimate Object, Fig Faeth is cool as shit y'all, I'll add tags as needed, Let Riz Call His Mom 2k2k, Self-Indulgent, The Gang Gets Into A Conspiracy, y'all know i'm gonna get shippy and gay up in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:20:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenspaces/pseuds/brokenspaces
Summary: One-shots of the Bad Kids, a group of ordinary teenagers running across the country in a van for a crime they didn't commit. Well. I mean. They committed a lot of murder, but that wasn't really their fault. That's not the point. The point is, it's spring break, and they're on a road trip.(The Bad Kids Road Trip AU that is literally just self-indulgence).
Relationships: The Bad Kids (Dimension 20)/Original Character(s), Zelda Donovan/Gorgug Thistlespring
Comments: 17
Kudos: 56





	1. a hero is a violent wanderer

“Get in the van!” 

“Why?”

“What the  _ fuck  _ did we just do?”

“Th-the-the-the--”

“Guys, let’s just call my mom.”

“No!”

“No time to talk, just go! Go!”

Somehow they all stumbled into a plain-looking van, all stumbling and yelling and pushing, until the kid in the sweatshirt turned the key and they were peeling out of the school parking lot. 

“What’s going  _ on _ ! Who were all those people? What’s that smell?” the driver asked in a fumbling string. He kept driving nonetheless, following the girl with the sharp eyeliner’s directions. 

“What’s he talking about?” some guy in a letterman’s jacket asked from the backseat. 

“I think he was passed out for most of the fight,” Pink Girl said. “We’ve just become the main suspects of a homicide in our school cafeteria.”

“We may have committed some of it,” Jock said shakily. 

The van came to a slamming halt. 

“ _ What _ ?”

\--

The first day was the worst.

Six kids sat in a van, dripping blood into the seats.

“What the fuck? What’s happening? What’s that  _ smell _ ?” the lanky kid in the front seat muttered, mostly for himself. If anyone answered he wouldn’t have heard through his headphones blasting something that screeched. Next to him, the Pink girl rolled her perfectly-lined eyes, even as she lit her cigarette with shaky fingers. Her Doc Martens were propped up on the dashboard so she could try to rub the bloodstains out of her pink skirt.

In the middle sat a blonde with long, neat hair and a blood-splattered school uniform, staring vacantly ahead and clutching to a bloody ladle. The jock slouched on the other side of the seat, equally bloodied, but only his handsome face betrayed his distress.

In the back a small kid in a full suit set his briefcase and gun on his lap, sulking and muttering something about his mom. Beside him sat a redhead in a tie-dye tee, hands clasped together in prayer. 

The girl in the front finished her makeshift stockings and switched on the radio. 

_ Tragedy strikes Aguefort Academy with students walking into a murder scene in their own cafeteria. Police reports state their main suspects are freshmen students Kristen Applebees, Fabian Seacaster, Figueroth Faeth, Gorgug Thistlespring, Riz Gukgak, and Adaine Abernant--  _ The radio was abruptly cut off. 

“We’re fucked,” the driver said. The bloody girl started to laugh.

\--

The bloody girl was Adaine Abernant, the driver’s name was Gorgug Thistlespring, the pink girl was Fig, Just Fig, the Jock was Fabian Aramais Seacaster, the Briefcase Kid was Riz Gukgak, and the redhead was Kristen Applebees. They made their introductions at some point. 

There was an unspoken agreement, by then, that they weren’t going back. Unspoken because the word ‘fugitive’ felt like a damnation, too big for them to swallow in one piece. Instead, they found a gas station.

Five children dripped blood on the linoleum. It was only five because they had locked Riz in the car so he wouldn’t call the cops. The underpaid cashier didn’t look up, which was probably best for all of them. 

“We’ll wash off,” Kristen whispered to Gorgug, then ushered the others into the grimy bathroom. She had been knocked out halfway through the fight and has been praying since she woke up again, clutching her own bloody knuckles. Her own reflection surprised her, ponytail in disarray, ugly bruising and lip split. Adaine disappeared into a stall. They ignored the sound of her retching. 

Fig broke into the supplies closet, which she only knew how to do because it was the sort of thing the person she wanted to be would know. Standard disinfectant wipes stung against her cuts while Kristen quietly scrubbed at their clothes with the diluted dispenser soap. 

“You’re going to pay for that, right?” Kristen asked while they dried out their clothes.

Fig laughed bitterly. “How are you worried about that?” She flipped out her shorts pockets. “I’m broke anyway.” She took her damp dress and left. Kristen sipped a few dollars into the cabinet.

-

Gorgug had memorized Zelda’s phone number. He had done it when she first typed it into his phone, and it was one of the only things that stuck in his head. He fed two quarters into the payphone and typed it out with shaking hands. It rang once before the line was picked up.

“G-gorgug?” Zelda said. “What’s up?”

Gorgug shrugged, then realized that she couldn’t see him, and said, “I don’t know. I’m at a gas station right now and I'm really confused.” 

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s like, news about you being part of some kidnapping or murdering group or whatever.”

“Weird.” Gorgug took a deep breath. “I think I might have killed someone.”

“Weird.” To anyone else, the ensuing silence would have been awkward, but Gorgug found comfort in it. “Are you coming back?”

“I don’t know,” he said. 

“I don’t think you should,” she said even quieter.

“I want to,” he said, so quiet he wasn’t sure she could hear him.

“I want you to too,” the static barely scraped through the phone. “There are police outside,” was the next thing she said. “Bye. I love you. Or whatever.”

“Love you too.” The phone clicked off. He turned around. “Fuck!” 

Riz was beside him. Gorgug squared up to block the phone because he didn’t want to get arrested, but Riz wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring ahead like he was in a trance. Through the window. Gorgug cautiously moved away from the phone to see what he was looking at. 

The cashier still didn’t look up from her phone. If she did, she would see six teenagers on the news, accused of crimes said teenagers did not actually commit. Big crimes. Bigger than a lunchroom homicide. Fabian charged out of the bathroom to see Riz, Gorgug, and Fig all whispering together near the back wall. 

“What is he doing out of the car?” he hissed. Riz had changed into a different, cleaner suit, and there was a resolute set to his mouth. He still looked fucking ridiculous.

“I let myself out,” Riz replied, far calmer than he had been. “And I’m not going to call my mom. As of right now, we are officially fugitives of the law.”

Kristen drifted into the group, still bruised but significantly less bloodied. “What’s the plan?” she asked. She was also disturbingly calm. 

“Where’s that other girl?” Fig asked.

“Adaine’s still throwing up in the bathroom, I think.” She glanced over at the staticky light of the TV. The coach of their school was being interviewed. And what he was saying… Kristen clutched the cross around her neck on a reflex, then looked down at it. Her mind was spinning. Kristen couldn’t even  _ begin _ to wrap her head around it. “I know him,” is what she said. “He’s-- He leads my youth group. I don’t-- I  _ know _ him.” 

There was a finality to that.

“I’ll change out the license plate. We need disguises and supplies to live off of,” Riz said. ”Does anyone have cash?”

“I’ll take money out of the ATM,” Fabian said. Then, quickly, “My credit card isn’t registered under my account.” 

“How much can you take out and will your dad snitch on us?” Riz asked. 

Fabian sneered. “Do you  _ know _ who my father is?” Fig rolled her eyes again, and Riz looked like he wanted to argue, but Fabian caught his arm. “No. Do you know who my father is?” 

Bill Seacaster was not, as far as anyone could prove, a thief. He has never been caught, nor has he ever been formally charged. He is disgustingly rich and has been brought to court countless times. They all nodded quietly and he left to get his money. 

“I’ve got disguises,” Fig said. “I think I saw a thrift store across the street.”

“Good. Does anyone have any first aid training?” Riz was checking off boxes on a small notebook now. Nobody wanted to ask why he had a plan for running from the police.

“I’m first aid certified,” Kristen said. “I’ll get medical supplies.”

“I can--” Gorgug looked around, then leaned down. “I can make weapons, I guess. My parents are engineers and I can--” He looked down at his shoes. “Whatever.” Fabian walked back in, jacket used as a makeshift bag to carry in stacks of money. Riz choked on air.

“This is all the ATM let me extract,” Fabian said like he wasn’t carrying more money than any of the others had seen in their lives. 

“Should we check on Adaine?” Fig asked. As if on cue, she stumbled out of the bathroom, still shaking. She was clutching a cell phone in one of her hands. 

Riz’s eyes went wide. “You have to throw that out, right no--”

“It’s encrypted,” she said, quietly. After she had emptied her guts of breakfast, lunch, and a little bit more, she had sat there, shaking, staring down at the grimy tiles. Then she had decided the only thing she could do was make herself useful. “I ha-hacked the cameras. They’ll loop the empty store until we leave.” 

They all stared at her, shivering and pale and erasing their problems. 

“Perfect,” Riz said. “We all have our jobs. Let’s go.”

They split, each with a list assigned to them by Riz, while Adaine furiously typed at her phone, and Fabian bought paint. When they reconvened, Fabian was driving a newly-painted plain white van out of the automated car wash.

\--

Now that the shock was over and they could finally admit they were royally screwed the car rides were not silent. 

“I can’t drive any faster,” Gorgug insisted. “I’ll be breaking the speed limit!”

“We’re running from the cops!” Fig yelled back. “Go! Go! Go!”

“Can someone else just drive?” Fabian asked.

“ _ No _ !” was Gorgug’s answer as he clutched to the wheel. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you wearing a Hudol uniform?” Fig asked.

“I-I d-ddon’t…” the rest of her sentence was lost to consonants. Gorgug, fortunately, spoke fluent stutter. 

“She doesn’t own any other clothes!” he shouted. Adaine sunk into her seat. 

“Get off on the next exit,” she barely whispered. She was the only one that could read maps, so she got to sit shotgun. “There’s a motel for us to stay in.” 

Gorgug changed lanes just as Riz processed what Adaine said. 

“No! Get back on the freeway!” he yelled. Gorgug just yelled, swerving, and then everyone was screaming too. They stopped with a screech at the traffic light. 

“Why did you want me to  _ stop _ ?” Gorgug asked as they all caught their breath. 

“We should’ve gotten off at the next exit, changed license plates there, then doubled back and changed in the gas station. It’s a shell game,” he said, like someone who was entirely sane and normal. “Just, let me drive!”

“Can your feet even reach the pedals?” Fabian mumbled. Riz lunged at him and honest-to-god hissed. Fabian flinched away. “What the  _ fuck _ , The Ball?”

“Oh my god, I completely forgot about that,” Fig giggled. 

Riz just glared and returned to muttering to himself. 

There was a long pause.

Kristen shut her bible. “I think… maybe God isn’t real?”

“Here we are!” Adaine said a little too loudly.

Fig had spent the ride doing  _ something _ to a bag of wigs and extensions that meant Riz and Fabian booked two motel rooms with wildly different hair colors. It looked better than thrift store costume wigs should have. They split the girls' room and the boys' room and Fig doled out the clothes she bought.

Fig had bags of clothes. Adaine restrained herself from making some embarrassing noise or crying. She should probably pick something sensible. Adaine was gripping a jean jacket in her hand, silently wondering how it would look on her. A  _ t-shirt _ . How… nondescript. Adaine longed to be nondescript. 

“Why  _ do _ you only have uniforms for a school you don’t go to?” Kristen asked. 

“I was supposed to go to Hudol,” Adaine said. “I failed the entrance exam.” 

“Fuck Hudol, anyway,” Fig said, then shoved some clothes in her hands. “You're too smart for them.” 

Adaine cautioned a small smile, which was mirrored back tenfold. 

She learned, as they were changing in bathroom stalls, that Fig liked to talk about her feelings. She liked to talk, mainly, about how she just learned  _ this year _ that her father wasn’t actually her real father, that her parents got divorced and she was living with her  _ mom _ , and that her dad was doing pretty bad and eating too much yogurt. Adaine did her best to listen because she was going on the run with these people, so she might as well make friends with them. Kristen likes to randomly interject with something concerning, like how she was going to burn in hell or something. 

Fig had watched a whole video about how to do this. It had a legit CIA lady and everything. (She also may be using this as an excuse to make her dramatic change). Hair dye, smudged makeup, thrift store clothing to replace her (admittedly nice) dress. Plus, what she did with a hairnet was  _ impressive _ . Honestly, she looked like a different person by the end of it. It looked messier, and something in her itched to mess with the mascara dripping on her lower lash line. 

Fig loved it. 

“What’s  _ up _ !” she whooped as she slammed the bathroom door open. Adaine and Kristen looked genuinely confused for a moment, and Fig felt a spark of pride. “I’m a fucking artist!”

“Heck yeah,” Kristen said. She was clutching a tie-dyed shirt, with only a slightly different color scheme than the one she was currently wearing. 

Riz busted through the door, starting at the sight of Fig. “Who the  _ fuck _ is that?” 

\--self-indulgent makeover montage--

Fig bleached Fabian’s hair to dye it some other color but it looked so good, all white and artfully tousled, that they couldn’t help leaving it like that. The letterman jacket was carefully torn apart and stuffed into different trash cans as to not be traceable, and replaced with a beanie and sweatpants. Adaine’s long hair was cut raggedly short and dyed with shocks of blue, glasses found and applied, and with some coaxing, she allowed the jean jacket. Adaine happily helped to dismantle the smoke detector in their room and stealthily burn her Hudol uniform in the bathtub. Riz’s beautiful, beautiful hair was covered by a newsboy cap and his suit jacket, button-up, and Nice Shoes were stored away in his briefcase so he would look like a skinny member of the Jets instead of a suit-wearing child. Colored contacts and some clever contouring did the rest of the work. Gorgug’s style was bland enough that he got to keep it, but he was subject to a drastic haircut that made his face look longer and some eyeliner. The small bit of makeup on Kristen’s face was scrubbed off, ponytail chopped in half, lowered from its jaunty place, and bleached lighter. Her jeans were traded in for bulkier cargo shorts.

They all squeezed into the bathroom, pushing at each other to stare at their faces and tug on their hair while Fig scrambled to not let any of them ruin her hard work. Adaine kept shaking her head, watching the feathery blue land messily. Gorgug was blinking too wide to look at the black around his eyes.

“Should we use different names?” Fig asked. She was painting her nails black on the toilet, the acetone swamping the smell of their amateur salon. “I wanna be Lucy. Like, Lucifer, but not.”

“No, it’ll just sound even more suspicious when we inevitably fuck up,” Riz said. He was pretending to not care about looking at himself, but he kept tilting his head in the shitty bathroom light. 

“Aren’t you just a  _ ball _ of sunshine,” Fabian drawled. He looked around. “You see what I did there?”

Adaine finished tossing her hair and turned around with newfound purpose. “Should we get started on the weapons?” 

Everyone started to follow her out, but Fig grabbed onto Kristen’s arm. 

“You have first aid training, right?”

\--

Fabian was not a craftsperson by nature. No, he was a man of battle, instinct, and training taking over. Not that nerd shit that the others were partaking in with the physics and the engineering or whatever. He just wanted a sword. 

“How are we supposed to make a sword?” Riz asked, messing with something with wires. “Don’t you want a crossbow that explodes?” 

“I am  _ classically trained _ in the art of swordplay, so no. I do not want a crossbow that explodes,” Fabian sniffed. He flopped down onto the shared bed. 

This was boring.

“I’m going to stretch my legs,” he announced. Maybe he could find a nearby payphone and call his Papa… 

“What? No!” He was convinced Riz’s face was frozen in a permanent scowl. “Do you want to get caught? You stay inside and away from cameras.” His face scrunched up when he got frustrated, Fabian noted. Then Adaine called his attention away to look at something she was mixing in a jar. Gorgug was tinkering quietly with some metal parts. 

“What do you do?” he asked. Gorgug looked entirely startled that Fabian was talking to him. 

“Uh, nothing much. Just hang out, mostly. I make these.” He groped around in the mess in front of him and pulled out a small, tin flower, twisted out of scraps. “Or whatever.” 

Fabian took Gorgug in, all limbs and height, almost delicate flower in his hands. “You're a big dude, dude. Do you do any sports?” 

“No,” Gorgug mumbled, closing back off. Fuck. He let himself sink back onto the bed. Being a fugitive was fucking boring. 

\--

Gorgug had twisted a belt, metal, and part of a pool cue into a makeshift ax, and after some talking with Riz and a lot of broken wire, he made some sort of spiky, sword-adjacent thing. Fabian accepted it. Riz had done something (?) to his gun and made the aforementioned explosive crossbow, and Adaine had stuff in small, round jars she bought at the thrift store. 

She knocked on the girl’s room door, holding a pointy staff. 

“Come in?” Kristen’s voice said, only it went wavery and rushed in a way that made Adaine start to panic. 

Fig was holding something small and sharp, one hand fisted in the sheets, another hand clutching at her face. Kristen was hovering nearby, disinfectant in hand. 

“What’s happening?” Adaine asked, her own voice starting to waver. 

“Woah, woah, hey.” Kristen was by her side in a moment, awkwardly soothing. It was clear she didn’t know what to do, but the intention was more comforting than Adaine had gotten in a bit. 

“Shit, wait.” Fig moved her hand away from her face. Adaine blinked at her. There was a ring in her septum, a stud in her nose, two more in the cartilage of her ears, and a ring in her lip. “It’s just piercings, it’s all good.” She winced when she talked, hand going back up to her mouth. “Ow.”

“Is that sanitary?” Adaine asked, still trying to calm herself down. 

“No,” Kristen said, right as Fig said, “Yes.” 

“Okay,” Adaine said carefully. Then she remembered the pointy staff she was holding. It was rough (in the aesthetic way, not the splintering way) and twisted together in a rustic way. She held it out to Kristen. “Uh, this is for you.”

Kristen took it with wide eyes. “Oh. That’s nice.” She took it in her hands, running over the sharp part lightly. The potential of violence stuck in the back of her throat. Kristen tested the weight in her hand. “I’m hungry.” 

\--

There was a diner nearby, old and greasy in that comfortable way roadside diners all were. They squeezed into a booth. Riz observed. Fabian blotted every fry before he ate it. Adaine picked at hers with delicate fingers before looking around and taking an obnoxious bite. Fig was just drinking a milkshake and pretending that her lip didn’t really hurt. 

“So here’s what we know,” he started, but Fabian slumped onto the table and groaned. 

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Fabian said. “Can’t we just chill?” 

Riz’s face scrunched up. “We can’t just  _ chill _ .” HE looked around. The bored waitress was drawing something on the counter, very much not paying attention to the group of loud teenagers that were sitting in the corner. “You know why we can’t.” 

“Just for a little bit?” he asked. He knew he was being petulant, but the thought of it all was making his chest tighten in ways he hated. Fabian supposed he should embrace the whole criminal thing. Then he saw Gorgug walking over to a middle-aged man by the jukebox. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the man made a weird face and then walked away leaving Gorgug to awkwardly pluck at his sleeves. 

“What was that about?” Kristen asked when he came back. 

“I was just thinking he could bemydadorwhatever,”’ Gorgug mumbled. There was a silence at the table. “I’m adopted.” That cleared absolutely nothing up.

“So you just… ask people if they’re your dad?” Fabian asked incredulously. 

“Just gotta try, you know.” His fingers were twisting in some foil, making a little flower. “Or whatever.”

Fig punched his arm, but like, in a comforting way. “No, I get it,” she said. “I, like, don’t talk about it a lot,” a lie, “but I’m looking for my dad too. I like, just found out that my life is a lie or whatever, and that my dad isn’t my actual dad.” 

“You  _ definitely _ told us about that earlier,” Kristen said. Everyone agreed. Fig scoffed, returning to sipping her milkshake in pain. 

“Wait, how many people have daddy issues?” Kristen asked. Adaine, Fig, and Gorgug all raised their hand. 

(Riz didn’t raise his hand, but he did curl in a little bit.)

“Daddy issues squad!” Fig cheered, holding her fists out to be bumped. They were. 

The hair on the back of Riz’s neck stood up. He glanced around the diner. Someone was watching them. 

There was a shiny hubcap mounted on the wall in front of him. The diner behind him was reflected perfectly, giving Riz a great view of the booth on the other side of the diner. 

There was a group of guys, all wearing matching leather jackets. They were similarly squished into a booth, trying very hard to look like they weren’t looking at them. One of them shifted in their seat. Riz saw the unmistakable handle of a gun. He pulled his hat low over his face. 

“Guys, shut up. There are people watching us in that bo-- No, don’t look!” He pulled Kristen down. He strained his ears. 

_ “Those people look a lot like…” _

_ “...not them…” _

_ “...you sure?” _

_ “...should check…Gorthalax would…” _

“Okay, they aren’t sure we’re us, so if we just act like everything’s normal and  _ Fig, what are you doing, stop now--” _

Fig didn’t listen. Instead, she did the opposite of that. She got up and walked over to their table. 

At some point between the two tables, her posture changed. Her gait got heavier. She curled in on herself. Her face dropped to ‘resting bitch’. The boys all watched her until she turned to their table, one eyebrow raised, and their gazes all dropped down to their lunch. She brushed by them and walked into the bathroom. 

Riz was now face-down on the table, pulling his hat around his head. Kristen flicked him. 

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “She was just going to the bathroom.” 

Fig returned, a smile breaking out across her face the moment she sat down. “Guess what I have?” She slid a pair of keys and a cellphone. Riz thumped his head back onto the table. “Can you hack his phone, Adaine?” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Oh shit, is that their car? It’s  _ nice _ .”

“I-- That’s not how hacking works.”

“How did you do that?”

“I saw it in, like, a youtube video or something.”

“Can we steal his car?”

“Why would you  _ do  _ that?” Riz groaned.

“Perhaps we should go,” Fabian said. The words had barely left his mouth and the group was already gone. Fabian slammed down two hundred-dollar-bills onto the table and followed them out. 

\--

“Why would you  _ do  _ that?” Riz yelled. 

“We have to  _ go _ !” Fabian shouted at Fig. Fig had one hand on the wheel, the other holding a clove to her mouth, and she was laughing like a madman. Bullets peppered the road behind them. The sports car did not reasonably fit six kids, especially not while screaming down an empty highway. How they all fit in was a mystery. Riz was half-falling out of the passenger seat, shooting back at the tires of their pursuers, so he couldn’t solve it. 

“Slow down, Daddy-O,” one of the greasers said. Gorgug twitched in annoyance. Adaine wrinkled her nose at him. 

“That’s really gross!” she announced. Then she punched him in the face. 

The dude looked a bit confused. Adaine clutched her bloody hand. 

"Adaine, are you okay?" Kristen called. "That looked like it hurt!" 

Adaine was just mad. She pulled one of her Jars out of her bag and threw it at him. 

The explosion rocked the car. Adaine whooped, then spilled her guts over the side of the car. “Oh, god! I’m a murderer!” 

“I’m out of bullets!” Riz yelled. Then a greaser jumped onto the back of their car. 

“Just chill, Daddy--” Gorgug shot up, eyes wild.

“Stop calling people that!” He yelled and knocked the man off their car in one swing of his ax. High on adrenaline, he slammed the weapon into the driver of the next car to approach them. The ax wasn’t especially sharp, but Gorgug pulled it through with pure force, leaving only half of a person to slump over the wheel. 

Not one to be outdone, Fabian leaped onto the back of the car. Through some feat of balance, he didn’t fall off, wind sweeping through his bleached curls. He was reminiscent of some sort of young god, all dimpling smile and grace as he beat back any jumpers. Adaine threw back a few more jars, and even Kristen gored a few of them with her staff. Soon enough, there was only one more person on their tail. 

His jacket read  _ Johnny Spells _ and he physically could not say anything without using the word ‘Daddy-O’. Fabian wanted his motorcycle. 

Fig went impossibly faster. “I’m gonna do something stupid. Hold on.” These were not comforting words to hear from the driver of a speeding sports car heading up the winding road of a mountain. 

The car went into the air, flipping upside down. Fig realized, as the road came rushing back toward her, that this was not going as planned. 

Fabian was standing on the back of the car. By the time they were in midair, he was not on the back of the car anymore. He pushed off, trying to remember the two lessons his father’s greaseman gave him. He grabbed onto the exploding crossbow-thing in Riz’s hand as he flipped.

The car crunched onto the pavement. No one was dead. Fabian was on his feet. Johnny Spells was racing toward Fabian, full-speed. Fabian took aim. Missed. 

Took aim again. 

Johnny Spells slumped on the motorcycle, all blood and exposed brain. He slipped off, but the motorcycle continued without him for a few feet. Fabian, determined to be cool, grabbed its handlebars as it roared by and swung on, then hit the brakes. 

God, he was cool.

“Oh shit, you’re cool,” Fabian murmured to the motorcycle. “I’ll call you The Hangman, okay?” The vehicle hummed under his fingers. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the party was still crawling out from under the steaming wreck of the car. Kristen was bleeding all over the first aid kit. Well, everyone was bleeding, but Kristen was trying to stop the bleeding. 

“Is he talking to that motorcycle?” Fig slurred. She was like, 80% sure she had a concussion.

“I thought you said you didn’t want a crossbow that explodes!” Riz sneered, despite the fact his arm was now soaked with blood. He looked at the wreck, the trail of bodies, and at their wounds. Trail of bodies. Now they aren’t in a high-speed car chase, the romance is gone. The aspect ratio has gone back to normal and the orange-blue tone has dissipated. The sun set, catching on the blood that streaks across the road. 

It’s unimportant.

“How the fuck are we supposed to get back to the van?” he grumbles. Adaine retches over the rail of the highway. 

A horn honked. A pleasant, blue van with yellow smiles painted onto the windows pulled up.

“Hiya kids! Need a ride?”

\--

The first day was the worst. 

Kristen decided this in the silence of the van, the landscape running on outside the window. Her hand reflexively went to the cross on her neck. Then it went back to her lap. The smell of blood was stuck in the back of her throat, caked under her nails. Everyone in the van was patched with shaky bandages. She felt a little pride in her work. 

She was confused. She was tired. She wanted to go home.

It couldn’t get worse than this.

Kristen closed her eyes. She could hear Gorgug’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel, the scratching of music escaping his headphones. Dark, humming notes of Fig’s bass, not in any particular melody. The rushed noise of Adaine typing on her phone, which she had hooked up to the greaser’s. Riz muttering to himself, the sharp sound of scissors and pencil on paper as he twines little clues together on the wall. Fabian makes a soft noise in his sleep.

Kristen falls asleep. 


	2. write your name on the face of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fabian deals with being the son of a legend.   
> TW: The Gore Gets Kinda Gross

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit this turned out to be so long. I don't know what I'm doing and I'm very tired and I also had to find every time Fabian and Bill interacted For Accuracy. Ft: inconsistent speech patterns for Bill and also I try to find more words to describe crash

Fabian liked sword fighting. 

He liked the physicality of it, the simplicity of attack and defend. He liked the grace it required, how light he felt as he dodged away and leapt forward. He liked how it took up all of his brain-space to think of the technique and the posture and the strategy, and nothing beyond that.

It did help that he was extremely good at sword fighting. 

Fabian liked to be good at things. A sword whistled through the air, coming for him, but he batted it away with a flick of the wrist. He lunged forward. His sword caught Herzon on the side. Mama, basking in the gardens, wine drunk as always, burst into applause. His instructor joined in.

“You are truly an excellent swordsman, Master Fabian,” he said. Fabian glowed with the praise. “One more round, then off to school with you!” 

“Not so fast, Herzon!” Fabian whipped around just in time to catch the sword-swinging toward the back of his head. 

Bill Seacaster was legendary. Every criminal would kill to work with him, the killing usually part of a preliminary test after the initial interview. He was a self-made man. He had two dollars in his pocket when he robbed his first bank. The tale of Bill Seacaster was one of guts and glory. He was a literal living legend. Directors around the world were awaiting his death so they could make movies about his life. 

These were all facts that Bill would never hesitate to remind him of. 

“Thought you could leave the house without a little tussle with your old man?” Their swords met with a clash. His father grinned a mad smile. He was using his real sword today. 

Papa never had a discernible strategy in a fight. He only had one thing on his mind: attack. His swinging was ceaseless and heavy and Fabian’s wrist ached from keeping the sword from hitting him. He could do nothing more than back himself into a corner. He switched hands and had to fully dive to avoid getting hit. 

Bill did not fight with grace. He fought solely to win. “Dont’cha love this, my boy?” he laughed as Fabian rushed to find a weak spot. “A good, bracing battle to start your day off! Y’know, this reminds me of a fight I once had during a robbery in Europe.” He didn’t cease his fighting as he talked. “A man was pointing a gun at me, and I couldn’t reach for mine. I pulled one of them medieval swords off the wall and--” He kicked behind Fabian’s knee and he tipped forward. “Let’s just say that I left and he didn’t!” A crashing stroke was followed up with a fist nearly caving his face in. Fabian moved just in time, grabbing onto his father’s arm and flipping him so he was pinned to the ground. 

Bill wheezed out a laugh. Then he spit a key onto the ground. The key to a grenade.

Fabian jumped backward, tugging his father along with him. “Pa _ pa _ !” He shoved his father behind him. He didn’t see any grenade. Cold metal grazed the back of his neck. He froze. 

Then it was gone, and Papa was clapping him on the back. “Ha! You fell for the ol’ grenade key trick!” A rough hand went to Fabian’s carefully arranged hair, ruffling it. “Ya gotta get out of yer brain, my boy!” 

Hallariel, still drunk, burst into applause yet again. Fabian smiled weakly like his heart hadn’t just tried to evacuate his body. Then he was being pulled forward by the back of his neck. His father crouched down to meet his eyes. 

“Now, I hear that you’ve not taken the title of captain yet,” he muttered. Fabian felt even more panic than when he thought there was a grenade in their house. “What’s keeping you from taking what’s yours?”

Fabian swallowed around the lump in his throat. “He says I don’t have heart, Papa.” There was a heavy silence. 

Then Bill released him, laughing heartily. “Ah, the old fool. My darling boy, yer a Seacaster, we’ve only got hearts for two things!” He threw his sword across the room, impaling it in a wall. 

“Glory and gold, Papa!” Fabian said, planting his own sword in the ground. 

“Glory and gold, me boy, glory and gold!” Bill yelled. Fabian was tugged forward once again, so his forehead rested on his father’s. “That man may think ye ain’t a captain, but you’ve got my blood in yer veins. Yer every bit a captain I am.”

“Yes, Papa,” Fabian said. Captain Fabian Aramais Seacaster was his destiny. 

“Yer glory is my glory, boy.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Take our legacy, Fabian, by whatever means necessary.” His father kissed him on the forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Papa.”

Captain Fabian Aramais Seacaster would be his father’s legacy.

\--

Fabian didn’t like phone booths. 

Aesthetically, they were decent. Functionally, they worked when you needed to call someone off-the-grid. 

Fabian didn’t notice his hands were shaking until he tried to type in his father’s number and missed the buttons four times. A day of adrenaline was melting off into shock and shame. Everything smelled like blood. He didn’t know if his vision was blurring or if it was just the dirty glass. God, he hated it. He hated the road and the moving and the scummy bathrooms.

He typed in his father’s number. It picked up after three rings. 

“My boy!” Bill cheered. Fabian quietly let himself feel comfort at the words.

“Papa,” he said weakly.  _ I’m scared. I don’t like this. I want to go home. _

“Did’ja fight with honor?”

Fabian looked down at his shaking hands. Then he cleared his throat. “No, Papa, I fought to win.” 

Bill’s laughter crackled through the phone. “That’s me boy! Now, is it true what they’re saying on the news?”

“No,” Fabian rushed to say. “No, I--”

“You didn’t fight those men?” Bill’s quiet tone sent Fabian’s stomach swooping to the ground. 

“I fought, Papa. I killed twenty men with my sword alone, as you did in France.” The bravado was back, his voice loud and steady, and his father couldn’t see his shaking hands, and that’s what mattered. “That part’s true. The rest-- it’s lies and slander. I would never join some organization when I could simply forge my own! Just as you would, Papa.” The walls of the booth seemed to close in. It was so  _ cramped  _ in here, he  _ hated it-- _

“Of course, me lad! Of course!” Fabian had his hand over the receiver so his father couldn’t hear how quick his breath had gotten. 

“And-- and just yesterday, we had stolen the car of a gang that was following us, and we--”  _ We killed them. We killed them. Blood on the highway.  _ “They were dust on the road by the time we were done with them. I killed the leader myself and stole his motorcycle.”

“Your first spoil! Tell me all about it, lad!” Pride oozed through the speaker. 

“Yes, Papa.”

Fabian recounted the car chase on autopilot. The words he wanted to say were stuck in his throat. How could he say them?  _ I need help, Papa, I need you to clear my name for me because I’m useless and I’m a murderer and I want to go home _ . 

“I’m so proud of you, my boy.” The walls stopped caving in on him. 

Proud. He was proud. 

“Doing all of this on yer own reminds me of the first time I was on the run from the law!”

Fabian was alone and that made Papa proud. 

Fabian wanted to go home. 

Bill’s voice got low, making the static scrape against Fabian’s ear. “This is an important part of a man’s life, my boy. They say you don’t know a man’s true colors until he’s on the run from the law.” Fabian knew that no one said that, no one besides his Papa.

Fabian stood in that fucking phone booth and told him he could do this by himself, and to not expect him back anytime soon.

“Do you remember the first time that you watched someone die?” Fabian let his voice shake, just for a moment. He knew it would never happen, but he wished his father would say something soothing, some sort of advice.

“The first man I watched die was my father. It was on his deathbed, and I had my dagger up under his ribs--” Fabian carefully placed the phone down on top of the box and slid down to the floor. His whole body was shaking now. 

Some gum stuck to the side of the booth stuck into his hair. 

So, Fabian hated phone booths. 

\--

Fabian liked the Los Angeles safe house. 

He had stayed there before when one of his father’s old associates had realized he had been screwed over and threatened to take Fabian and his mother. t had a pool and a full gym. His father had returned at the end of the summer, missing a few more teeth and holding a bag of something that stained the fabric red. 

Fabian had called his father when they got to the city, praying he would offer for them to stay there. Bill Seacaster did him one better. 

The L.A. safehouse was a small mansion. It was sleek architecture and tinted windows, built into the side of a cliff. It wasn’t discreet in the least bit, but it was L.A. There were three more buildings like this on this ridge alone. 

The Hangvan felt entirely out of place as it rattled up the long driveway. Fabian felt comfort at the sight of it, the first familiar thing he’s seen in months. He strode up to the door. 

“Now, none of you can track any of your gross shit inside my house, okay?” None of them were listening. They had already been hyped up from the Club Debacle, and the fact they were going to stay in a literal mansion wasn’t calming them down any. 

The door swung open. 

“Fabian! My darling boy!” Fabian was swept into a bone-crushing hug, the same hug he’s been wrapped into for his whole life. He smelled ash and sea-salt. 

“Papa!” Bill Seacaster pulled away to survey his battle-wounded friends. Fabian was still stuck on the fact that his father was  _ here _ . 

“My sweet,” his mother said from where she was reclined on the couch. She raised a glass of wine to his presence. He ran to her and hugged her, and she loosely returned it. 

“And these are yer friends, Fabian?” Bill asked. Riz handed him a business card and Adaine fucking  _ bowed _ . Fabian was going to walk into the ocean. 

“Yes, these are my friends,” he said.  _ Don’t be stupid _ , he mouthed to them. Kristen gave him a thumbs up then stumbled into the doorframe. “We’ve just come from the Black Pit, Papa. We started a riot.” His friends froze. 

Bill Seacaster just burst out laughing. “That’s my boy!” he cheered. “Always ready for a good fight! It’s the Seacaster Way.” Fabian laughed along. 

“Hey! Fabian’s dad! Check this out!” Fig started playing something on her bass. Bill went deathly silent, then started to pound out a beat. 

A sword was thrown into a light switch, and the bright white was replaced with spinning neon. Booming music blasted across the house. An amp appeared out of nowhere for Fig.

“We’ll sing ‘till the sun rises!” Bill yelled. He grabbed Fabian’s arm and spun him around twenty times before running off to do  _ something _ . Fabian felt himself relax for the first time in weeks. Fig beamed and continued playing. While Bill was jamming, she sidled up next to Fabian.

“Do you know where the liquor cabinet is?” she whispered. 

Bill appeared next to her. “It’s in the kitchen, next to the breadbox! Have yer fill. Just don’t. Stop. Playing!”

Fig looked at Fabian. Then she looked at Bill. “Your dad fucking rules,” she said, seriously, then ran to the kitchen. The amp was on a skateboard for some reason, and it slammed into the wall before trailing behind her. 

Fabian let himself fall back into the madness. Any lingering questions, any doubt about wanting to be just like his father, all of it went away when he saw his friends’ faces. He fucking  _ ruled _ ! This was his birthright, long nights dancing with his friends across his giant mansion and getting viciously drunk. Who could hate this? 

Sometime around five in the morning, the cold threat of sobriety crept upon him. Due to the fact he just spent a solid half-hour spewing in the bathroom, he thought it would be best if he let it. Everything spun,  _ loudly _ . His world narrowed down to one want: sleep. And maybe some fries. Carefully, he tried to pass out next to a potted plant.

“No rest for the wicked!” his father yelled too close to his ear. His friends cheered, he thinks. He kept his eyes open. 

The night dragged into morning. Through his haze, he watched his father dance around madly. Fabian envied him. Fabian worried about shit. Some days he felt sick with it. He needed to be the coolest, the hottest, the best. He had to be perfect. His father had no such qualms. His father would kick destiny itself in the balls. His father was everything without even trying. Fabian wanted to be him more than anything. 

He told him that later that day, in a rare, quiet moment before they left. 

Bill’s face was unreadable. Fabian forced himself to not look away.

“You are a direct reflection of me, boy,” he said. “Your glory is my glory. Take our legacy, Fabian.” He kissed him on the forehead and then clapped him on the back. Fabian held to that.

Fabian would carve the Seacaster name on the face of the world. 

\--

The van rocked quietly as they drove down the coast. Fabian was reclined in the passenger seat, letting the setting sun wash over him. 

“So that was my Papa,” he said, half to himself and half to Gorgug. Gorgug made an uncomfortable noise. Fabian opened one eye. Gorgug had heavy bags under his eyes. He yawned softly and didn’t meet Fabian’s eyes. Fabian often marveled at how such a large man could make himself so small. 

“Speak your mind,” he said. 

Gorgug glanced at him. “Your dad is… kinda scary.” 

“Of course he is,” Fabian said, reclining once again. “He’s a Seacaster.” Gorgug huffed. The furrow between his brows appeared again, the one that happened when he realized he wasn’t being understood. 

“No,” he insisted. Fabian waited. “You always say you want to be like him. I don’t-- I don’t think you should. Want to be.” 

Fabian sat up, shoulders tight. “You can’t tell me--”

“He’s loud!” The words rushed out of his mouth like he didn’t mean for them to. Judging by how Gorgug froze, that was probably true. Fabian paused, then finally turned to him. Once he saw that Fabian wasn’t mad, Gorgug cautioned continuing. “He’s very loud. H-he likes shouting and telling people what to do. I don’t like-- I mean, he doesn’t seem like you.”

That stabbed at something inside of Fabian that made him flare-up. “I am his flesh and blood. I am a Secaster. How dare you?” Fabian sat as straight as he could. “I am my father’s son.” 

“Okay,” Gorgug said. In the silence of the car, Fabian realized how loud he was talking. He settled back down in his seat. 

But Gorgug was stubborn too. 

“Fig’s fingers.” Fabian’s head snapped over to Gorgug. He was still looking straight out at the road, but there was a determined set to his jaw. “Did you see Fig’s fingers?”

Fabian turned. 

They were resting in her lap, with the usual calluses and chipped nail polish. But they were wrapped in bandages, tightly but messier than if Kristen did it. Blood was starting to stain through. 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to play bass for seven hours straight,” Gorgug said. It was quiet enough that Fabian almost thought he was talking to himself.

“She said she was fine,” Fabian tried, weakly. “Why didn’t she say anything?” Like he didn’t know. There was a manic energy around his father. It drew people in. It’s why he’s a legend, why, despite his track record with lackeys, people still flocked to work for him. It’s why Fabian would stay up all night of his own accord, practicing with his swords in his room, until he was sore everywhere and dropped to the ground.

“He’s loud,” Gorgug said. “And he gets angry really fast. And he served us cocaine for breakfast. And--” Fabian was gripping the seat head with a deathly grip. His friends looked nearly as torn up as when they left a battle. “I don’t know. Never mind.” 

\--

Fabian hated being a fugitive. 

A month was a long time to be on the run. A month. Four weeks of the same roads, the same van, the same fear. A lot of phone booths. Fabian was going a tad bit insane. 

Here was the issue: He was settling into a routine. Fabian was getting used to running. The rattle of the van was soothing, and the ache of sleeping sitting upright was familiar. The realization slowly crawled to the forefront of his consciousness. The action of running away was becoming calming. 

In the Seacaster household, calm meant a storm was coming. 

Fabian caught himself looking over his shoulder more often. Jumping at shadows. He couldn’t sleep anymore. The others were starting to notice too, how he jumped whenever someone talked too loud and snapped at the little things. He deflected their questions. Fabian couldn’t admit it. Fabian was a Seacaster, and his father did not raise him to be scared.

His father. His father was working with them. He refused to hear The Ball when he first mentioned it, but the idea of it was starting to take shape in his mind. He wanted to punch something all the time now.

Fabian hadn’t slept for ten days. The van rattled on, the same it always did. His mouth tasted like dust. The radio shifted in between stations before settling on another report of their names and faces. Fabian wanted to cry. Fabian wanted to scream. Fabian wanted to go home. 

The sign for a gas station passed them.

“Pull over at the next stop,” he croaked. 

“We have t--”

“I need to make a call. Pull over.” Gorgug knew better than to argue with Fabian when he used that tone.

Fabian got into the phone booth. He didn’t realize he didn’t know what he was going to say until the phone was ringing. 

“My boy! What’s the news--”

“I hate this.” Fabian gulped through the next few breaths. Anger was burning dark inside of him, and he felt as if he would explode with it. “I don’t deserve this. Any of it. To be treated like this. To be  _ talked about _ like this. Everyone’s saying I’m this violent criminal.”  _ It was self-defense. Every time. I wouldn’t do those things, not for fun. Not like _ \--

“My boy,” his father chuckled. “This is the  _ life _ ! Just first-month jitters.”  _ First _ month. Fabian bit back a sob. His father continued on, but he couldn’t bring himself to listen. Why did he call his father? “And my boy, yer a Seacaster. Of course yer a violent criminal!” 

Fabian jerked away from the phone. “I’m not a  _ criminal. _ ” 

There were a few seconds with just static. 

He thought his father had hung up when he said, “Are you ashamed of me, boy?” 

Fabian couldn’t breathe for a moment.

“I could never be ashamed of you, Papa,” Fabian rushed to say, but his father was already talking.

“Would you rather I was a law-abiding man? My profession was one more suitable to high society? I have earned my gold, boy, which is more than most rich men can say! Laws are nothing more than a fiction created by the weak to annoy and harass the powerful. You and I both know that!” Fabian couldn’t get a word in, even in the silence. Truth be told, he didn’t know what he would say. His father was everything he wanted to be. He thought so. Every single decision he’s made up until this moment has been based in that fact. 

“Papa,” he attempted, but he gave up quickly. 

Finally, a weary sigh ripped through the phone. “We haven’t been raised the same, you and I. I’m sorry that you feel you--” Fabian hung up. His father doesn’t apologize.

\--

Seacaster manor was burned. 

Not in a physical way. It would have been less panic-inducing if Fabian knew his house was burning to the ground. No, his house was entirely intact. But the  _ technically  _ bit of ‘technically not a thief’ no longer applied to Bill Seacaster. He had been burned. Exposed. Found guilty. Because of Fabian. 

He knew when The Ball had laid the whole conspiracy out for them, that getting tangled into this would have repercussions. At the time, he had been arrogant. He could handle it. He forgot to consider his family. 

Fabian was speeding down the highway, fast enough that the Hangman groaned in protest. There wasn’t a moment to consider how he was walking straight into a trap. He knew he wasn’t going to make it. 

Fabian pushed on faster. 

Then he smelled smoke. It was faint, but there. On a whim, he scanned the skyline. He knew exactly where his house stood on it. His whim was correct. The little bump on the horizon, the one he had memorized in a fit of homesickness, was streaming gray, black clouds, and the sound of sirens screamed quietly. Fabian was wrong. This was every bit as terrifying as finding out his father has been charged.  _ That’s a bit on the nose _ , he thought absently. Keeping one hand on the handlebars, he fiddled with the radio Adaine had rigged into his motorcycle. Fabian wobbled and swerved. The radio clicked on. 

_ “...joining us on the live coverage of the fire at Seacaster Manor. Just moments before the FBI arrived, the house caught aflame with the Seacaster family inside. Hallariel Seacaster and all of the waitstaff have been accounted for, but William Seacaster, who has just been charged with fifty-seven cases of armed robbery has not--Wait--This just in. A body has been found. _ ”

Fabian knew who it was before the reporter finished her sentence. He was going to be sick. Much to the chagrin of every other motorist on the road, he took a sharp turn to pull over on the side of the highway. Then he pitched forward.

The edge of his face caught on a passing truck. He was so numb from the shock he mostly felt surprised. He teetered to a stop on the side of the road. 

Then he realized he was covered in blood. The side of his face really fucking hurt. He tilted his head a little to look into one of his mirrors, then was certain he was going to be sick. There was a gaping hole on the side of his face where his fucking eye was supposed to be. Fabian felt woozy with shock and grief and, you know,  _ blood loss _ . The radio continued to report on the ashes where his home once stood. He ripped off one of his sleeves with shaking hands. He allowed his mind to focus entirely on  _ not throwing up _ . The balled-up cloth pushed into his skull when he tied the cloth around his mouth.  _ Don’t. Throw. Up.  _

There was so much pain that it almost canceled out into a big, dull ache. 

Burned in the flames of his own home before the police come to arrest him. Not even in battle. How anticlimactic. Papa will hate it. 

Papa  _ would have _ hat _ ed _ it. 

Fabian caught himself before he veered over the side of the railing. Dark blood smeared on the concrete. There’s no possible way it’s ending like this. Fabian isn’t finding out like this. It was supposed to be a glamorous end. Not trapped under a beam of his burning mansion. Fabian was supposed to be there, to avenge his killer. Fabian was supposed to be  _ there _ . Not watching from miles away. 

The body’s been identified. The sun shined brightly on his face. The radio commercial played the jingle of a sandwich shop. Blood dried on his shirt. Fabian couldn’t breathe. 

The last thing he had said to him. Fabian couldn’t remember the last thing he had said to him. All he remembers is anger and-- Fuck. The last time he would ever talk to his father, he killed him. 

A car slowed next to him, and then he realized he was on the ground. 

“...hospital?” is all that makes it through the static in his brain. In the fuzz, a stern reminder forces to the forefront of his brain. No hospitals. No police. You’re on the run. 

“I’m fine,” he says. Then, “My dad’s dead.”

Dead.

He starts his motorcycle and swerves back onto the road. His father will want--  _ would have  _ want _ ed _ him to stay safe. 

\--

His father’s eyepatch had appeared, hung on the handlebar of the Hangman, one day after his father’s death. Fabian didn’t wear it for weeks. 

\--

“It’s just that I want to destroy all of them,” Ayda said. Then she twisted the wheel, sending everything in the van flying to the right. She drove like Fig: violently and badly. 

“I’m sure she’s  _ fine _ ,” Fabian said, clutching to his ribs. “I’m more worried about the Hangman. He doesn’t like The Ball.” As he talked, he started to tie his dancing sheet down like a makeshift seat belt for his friends and him. 

“The Hangman? As in your motorcycle?” Tracker asked. 

“He’s very particular about who rides him!” Fabian shot back. 

“That’s what she said,” Kristen said, not helping. 

The van came to a screeching halt, and if it wasn’t for the sheet they probably would have flown out of the window. An explosion outside rattled the vehicle. Ayda squawked and leaped out of the van, followed by the rest of the crew. 

Smoke was pouring out of the doors of the courthouse. It was followed by a fucking bus.

It was bright red and somehow unharmed by the whole ‘crashing out of a building’ thing. A machine gun was strapped to the top of it. That wasn’t exactly the issue.

The issue was his father, alive, laughing madly at the wheel. 

“Papa?” 

“My  _ darling boy _ !” Bill Seacaster crashed through the window, landing in a shower of broken glass to sweep Fabian into a crushing hug. Then he pulled away to examine his face. “You got me present!” 

“You’re alive?” Fabian asked. Gunshots rang out from the building, and Bill jumped back to the bus. 

“Board me ship, I’ll tell you everything!” Fabian jumped through the open window, taking cover between the seats. The vehicle slammed forward. Fabian balanced beside the driver’s seat. 

“I thought you died!” Fabian shouted over the booming of the cannon. “They did a DNA test and everything! Oh shit, Alistair?” 

The guy popped up from one of the seats. “You left me for dead!” he wailed. Fabian picked up his sword and blocked a swing to the neck just in time.

“Who do you think paid for that test, me boy?” Bill paid no mind to the fight. Fabian beat Alistair back on autopilot, still reeling from the fact his father was  _ alive _ . “Of course I didn’t die! The Bill Seacaster story will not end in a kitchen fire!” Fabian twisted the weapon out of Alistair’s hand and hit him across the head with the butt of his sword. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Fabian turned to ask. Then something crashed through a window. Fabian batted the grenade out of the bus before it could detonate. 

“I’m sorry, my boy!” Bill yelled. Two men boarded the bus. Fabian unfurled his sheet, letting the wind whip through his hair. It whipped around an assailant, snapping back to put him in a chokehold while Fabian flipped off of a seat to kick the other in the throat. His sword went into the throat of one of them, and when he revved the accelerator, the Hangman pinned another to the front of the bus. 

His father was looking at him. Fabian’s chest tightened. He couldn’t look back. 

“It be beautiful,” his father said, softer than he usually would (so at a normal person’s casual speaking voice). Something heavy lifted off of Fabian’s chest.

Then the battle really started. 

There wasn’t enough time. Someone new would board the bus. Something with bigger guns would approach. There wasn’t any time.

“I’ve got an idea!” Bill yelled, which was never a good sign. “Hold on!” he added, which was even worse one. Fabian only had a moment to secure himself when Bill turned right. Right off of a cliff. 

Fabian landed on his feet, through some miracle, as the bus flipped upside down and started sliding. Bill Seacaster ran a tight ship, so it barrelled through the trees along the slope without an issue. His friends are all screaming. Immediately, Fabian tumbled forward to the front of the bus, where his father was sitting dutifully at the wheel. He was still laughing. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Fabian asked again. 

“What?”

“That you were alive?” 

Bill’s face changed in a moment. He gestured for Fabian to lean in. “I-- There’s a certain point, in the story, when you have to grow past what’s holding you back. I realized after you called me. It was me.” His father patted him on the shoulder. “I just didn’t want to hold you back, is all. And  _ look _ at you! You’re not like me at all!” Fabian’s breath stuttered a bit when he said that, but his father was smiling. His friends were yelling about the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. He couldn’t hear them. “I couldn’t have wished for a better fate for you.”

Then the bus crashed. 

There was just a big crash of force throwing him back, a dull pain just starting. The next thing Fabian saw was Fig, dragging him out of the rubble. Everything was dizzy, and he tasted blood. He shakily climbed out of the destruction. 

All of his friends were lined up. Everyone looked fine. But there was a gap. It took a moment for Fabian’s brain to catch up.

“Where’s Papa?” he mumbled. The words registered in his brain. A vague memory of his father being catapulted through the front window flickered past. “Where’s Papa?” Fabian ignored his friends’ confusion when he mounted the Hangman and tore off to find him. 

His father was lying in a patch of rocks. He was bleeding so much that his body looked like one big wound. Fabian fell to his knees next to him. His father coughed wetly.

“My darling boy,” he said. His face screwed up. “No, yer yer own man now. Yer own my darling man boy.” Fabian laughed softly. His father’s arm went up to cup his face. “Write yer name on the face of the world with yer heroic deeds, Fabian. You turned out better than I could have hoped.” 

He knew what his father was saying. “I just got over it,” he said.

“My boy,” his father rasped. “Just know I’m going to leap into hell, and kill the devil himself!” 

Fabian gripped that hand tightly. His father nodded at him. Fabian drove his sword into his father’s heart. Something cold fell from his father’s hand when it fell limp. It was a grenade pin. 

Fabian let the explosion highlight him as the Hangman roared away. 


	3. blood-soaked nails are still in my hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kristen needed to think about some things, so she does the obvious thing. Gets incredibly drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to watch so many of Kristen's Inspiring Speeches for this lol  
> ft. me projecting complicated wlw catholic problems  
> (wow this is way shorter than I thought it was)

Kristen Applebees grew up with a clear set of rules. They were simple, a comfort in a world that was always rushing. She knew her place. She knew where she was going to go. You just have to follow the rules. 

And then Kristen murdered someone with a Bible. 

“It’s a symbolism,” she said into the silence of the van. 

“Hm?” Fig asked. 

“The murder,” Kristen slurred. Fig looked concerned, but she went back to tuning her bass. Kristen had been drifting through the haze of alcohol for the last week, ever since--

Not yet. She doesn’t have to think about that yet. The point  _ is _ that Kristen murdered someone with a Bible. Blood was hot on her hands and slid on the leather cover of the book.  _ I’m going to have to go to confession _ , she thought with a distant horror, before she slipped and hit her head on the linoleum. 

Her parents had always told her that He had a plan for her. They taught her not to fear death, but to know when your time on earth is over. She knew when it was over. It was then. She wasn’t supposed to fight it. That was His plan.

Kristen Applebees gasped awake and ran. 

In the car ride, after, she had pressed rosary beads into her fingers, staining them sticky and pink and leaving imprints on her thumbs. The car rattled around her. She lost track of the Hail Mary’s three times. 

She’s never lost track. 

“That’s where it all went wrong.” Kristen’s foggy vision zeroed in on Riz’s mess of red tape on the wall of the van. Riz turned from where he pinned a new photograph, then realized Kristen was just drunk, still drunk, and went back to muttering to himself.

That had to be where it went wrong. That’s when her trip to hell started. That’s what started this deviancy. 

Deviancy? Where the hell did that come from? She sounded like her fucking parents.

“That’s right, I cuss now,” she said. Riz’s scrutiny lingered on her a moment longer than before. 

“Hey, Kristen, ar--”

“That’s the beginning. That changed  _ everything _ .” She flopped onto her stomach. “I… wasn’t like this before.” She flopped back onto her back. “Riz. I want fries.”

Kristen Applebees hadn’t been like That. She couldn’t have. That was a different thing, and she was  _ Kristen Applebees _ . She liked rules and honey and her brothers (sometimes). If she didn’t pay any attention to boys that was because she was waiting for marriage, and the idea didn’t make her uncomfortable at all, the thought of spending the rest of her life with one. And everyone knows girls are pretty. Just pretty. Not That. She wasn’t That.

Why did she hate the idea so much?  _ Because He said it was a sin _ , something steady in her soothed. Why does He hate it? Kristen asked back. What’s the evil in it? Why should I listen to Him? 

Oh, yeah. There was also this new concept. Questions. Questions didn’t fit in the rules. Definitely not the ones she had scribbled into the margins of her bloody Bible (symbolism?) one sleepless night. Riz, though. Kristen trusted Riz, and he said questions were good. So did Adaine, and she trusts Adaine even more. So did Fig. And Fabian. And Gorgug. 

So if everyone else in the world said it was okay, why couldn’t she do it? Would He stop her? Could He do anything?

The questions were traced out in heavy lead on thin paper, shining in the yellow light of the van, on the night where Kristen first had to face That. She had closed the Bible around these questions and stuffed it behind her seat. She hoped it wouldn’t get crushed. She hoped it would. 

Kristen had been to clubs before, black ink on her hand, mission in her mind. The flashing flights and sticky floors always made her nervous and sweaty. If she would let herself admit it, she could face that she was attracted to the writhing mass of dancing hiding you from view, the booming music drowning out any words or inhibitions. She wouldn’t let herself admit it. 

Unlike before, Kristen was alone.  _ “Split up _ ,” Riz whispered, and her friends had all dissolved into the crowd. As enticing as the club around her felt, she stuck out like a tie-dyed, sore thumb. She fumbled her way through a non-alcoholic drink order and parked herself in a corner. All around her, lights glazed over everything, and the pulsing music smoothed out into synth. Kristen stood in the corner, hand instinctively positioned by her face. The freedom was uncomfortable.

“No alcohol?” Kristen twisted around. 

The girl was taller than her, biceps on full display in a sleeveless shirt. Her hair was shaved, save a flop of hair which she tucked out of her face to look at Kristen. Kristen’s mouth went dry. 

“Uh, yeah. I just know a lot of alcoholics from my outreach programs.”

The girl looked her up and down. “Yeah, that’s definitely your vibes.” She leaned on the wall next to her, and like it was nothing, asked her, “You know that book’s, like, full of contradictions, right?” This poor girl didn’t know that she just opened the floodgates.

“Honestly? Yeah. I’ve been reading about the history of my people, and I-- I don’t know why bad things happen in the world? And no one’s answering my questions, so… I don’t know. The plan’s just to stick with what I know.” Kriste capped it off with a nervous giggle. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous. (She knew why she felt so nervous now). The girl blinked at her curiously. Kristen held a hand out. Kristen’s palms were so sweaty. “I’m Kristen.”

The girl took her hand gently ( _ gently _ ) and kissed it. Goosebumps suddenly stood to attention. “I’m Tracker,” the girl said. “This is crazy, but, y’wanna like, get drinks and talk? It’s pretty loud over here.” Kristen felt a bit like melting into a puddle on the ground and bit like screaming. 

“Sure.”

Kristen didn't think anything of it. How could she? Tracker was nice and laughed loudly and was close enough that she could feel the warmth of her. She couldn’t consider anything more than that. Not when Tracker’s hand was on her knee. It was warm. Kristen was warm. She had a feeling this was what drunk felt like. Tracker was leaning near. Tracker’s a girl. It doesn’t mean anything. 

“You know,” she said, and Kristen felt like she was floating. “You know, losing religion shakes you up, but it also gives you a lot more freedom. You could see things you couldn’t see before.” Tracker was even closer now. “You could feel things you haven’t let yourself feel before.” Something lodged in Kristen’s throat. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t That. 

“Yeah,” Kristen replied. “Yeah, my horizons have really mnph--!” 

Tracker’s lips were soft. They fit against Kristen’s easily. Too well. Kristen pressed back, on a fleeting instinct, on a desire that had been burning behind her ribs. It sparked a bit hotter. It burned. Tracker’s a  _ girl _ . Kristen startled back. 

“That counts for  _ something _ , right?” Kristen yelled into the sky. Gorgug nearly startled off the roof of the van. They were parked on the side of the road, fields stretching out endlessly, road cutting across it.

“How did you get up here?” he asked. “Are you  _ still  _ drunk? Why are you spinning?” 

“I mean-- I pulled away! That’s  _ something _ . I don’t-- I’m not--” Kristen threw up over the side. Gorgug kept her hair away from her face. 

“I don’t-- I’m not--” Kristen had spluttered out. She respected-- But she wasn’t-- This wasn’t in the  _ rules _ \-- “I don’t kiss!” 

Tracker had flinched back and Kristen almost wanted to pull her back. She didn’t. She just did That. Kristen wasn’t supposed to do That. She knew other people were allowed to be That. But Kristen was Kristen Applebees. Not That. Couldn’t be That.

Across the club, everything broke bad. Everyone was screaming. Kristen was relieved. She was in a fight. She didn’t have to think about That. Tracker got lost in the chaos. Kristen almost died again, but that was unimportant. As they drove away from another crime scene, Kristen reclined her seat to try to sleep. Something under the seat crumpled. Kristen froze.

She didn’t want to think about it.

When the time came to think about it, she found another solution. It was to get extremely drunk and then just not stop. It had been working so far, she thought as she emptied her guts.

“This is working,” she said, pushing away from the edge and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Uh, no?” Gorgug offered. Kristen ignored him. 

She collapsed onto her back, looking up at the stars. She was really tired. Everything was starting to blend into one, head-pounding blur. Kristen was happy to be alive. She was scared, too. There were questions now, on the book that she had desperately smoothed out in the back of the car, tearing already-worn pages in her haste. She didn’t know the rules anymore. She didn’t know she was going. Kristen had spent her whole life living for an afterlife she didn’t know existed. And then there was That. 

A boy in her Bible study was That, her parents had whispered over the kitchen table. He was being sent away. Kristen had felt like she was choking on the implications. ‘Sent away’ was never good. Kristen didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to sleep. She wanted her rules. 

But Tracker was warm and alive, hand hot on her knee. Her lips had fit into hers. Kristen wondered where she was. Kristen, for the first time in her life,  _ wanted _ . 

“You can see things that you hadn’t seen before.”

The quirk of her mouth when Kristen stumbled through a sentence.

“You can feel things,” 

Tracker’s lips were soft.

“You didn’t let yourself feel before.”

She wanted to see Tracker again, to kiss her, hold her. 

Kristen clambered back into the van, pulling Gorgug behind her. She needed to say something, Everyone looked up. Kristen felt fuzzy. They wouldn’t hate her. Her knuckles were white against the leather of the seat. She wouldn’t be sent away. Kristen felt like she was going to throw up again. They were all looking at her. 

“I’m gay.” 


	4. i'm not going to say the words because i can't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fig is in love with Ayda. She doesn't know how to deal with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was, weirdly enough, the easiest thing i've ever had to write. they're just so *cute*

Fig couldn’t think of a word that would rhyme with wolf. The first line of the chorus ended with wolf, so what the  _ fuck _ would the second line be? It’s what she had been thinking about for the past hour, and she swore she almost had it when Adaine dragged her out of the car to look at another library. It was something about Aguefort. She was really, really stuck on this wolf thing. 

“What are we doing here again?” Fig asked. 

“My pen pal, Ayda Aguefort. She’s here. She’s going to supply us with phones that we don’t have to throw away every five seconds,” Adaine said. 

“Aguefort has a  _ daughter _ ?”

Adaine frowned at her. “I explained all of this in the car. Weren’t you listening?”

“Sorry, I’m stuck on a lyric,” Fig explained, but Adaine was already brushing it off. She turned to Gorgug, who was also here. “Do  _ you _ know anything that rhymes with wolf?”

Gorgug just looked at her hopelessly. She didn’t pursue the point. 

They walked into Compass Points libraries and she forgot about wolves for a moment. 

The way Fig felt about Compass Points Library was the following: she was sick of libraries. Libraries were perfectly fine, conceptually, but when you had spent the last few months squinting at fuzzy screens in libraries to find a scrap of obscure information after another sleepless night in a shitty motel, you got sick of them. That’s how that worked. 

Compass Points Library made her want to curl up in a corner and read for hours. 

“Wow,” Gorgug said, which summed it all up.

It looked like the sort of library you would find in a picture book. Light poured in through big windows with curling designs etched into the glass. It spilled across the tall shelves, tall enough they warranted sliding ladders, all filled with books. Fig pulled one out, just to see. It had a wolf on the cover. 

She would never find peace. 

“Where’s your friend?” Fig asked, leaning against a shelf. Her mood was only worsened when one of those sweeping windows let the sun stab her directly in the fucking eyeballs. She blinked it away, shading her eyes. The light was coming from a window by a little shelf in the wall, big enough that it was used as a lounge space. Fig could make out the shape of a chalkboard, covered in scribbles she couldn’t begin to understand, a little nest of blankets and pillows, and a telescope. The window that sat above it was pretty, round but sectioned off into neat, equal shapes. 

A figure stood up from the blanket pile. She stretched, framed by hazy afternoon sunlight. All angles, sharp cheekbones, the hard line of muscle, a strong jawline. In the light, her shock of red hair burned gold against dark skin. The first button of her crisp white button-up was undone to reveal a smooth collarbone, and a shimmering, soft shawl hung from her shoulders. She looked like a classical painting. She looked unreal. That’s how Fig first saw her. 

“There she is,” Adaine said, like the most resplendent being hadn’t just risen in front of their eyes. “Ayda!” she called in a stage whisper. Ayda turned sharply toward them. Her round glasses were slipping down her nose. Her gaze examined first Adaine, then Fig, almost physical in its searching. Fig straightened.

Without a second thought, Ayda stepped directly off the shelf, onto a ladder, and slid at  _ least _ ten feet to the ground in one smooth movement. Fig was screwed. Ayda walked over, gaze never breaking. When she stopped in front of them, she studied them one-by-one again.

Fig desperately wanted to say something clever. She held out her hand. “Do you want some of my snack?” is what she ended up asking. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It wasn’t even good snack. It was a smashed-to-pieces granola bar she had found in the bottom of Gorgug’s glove compartment. Ayda studied the granola with the same intensity she studied Fig’s face with. 

“Is this a gift? If so I will not accept it. I will not be in debt, as a scholar,” she said in a structured rush. Fig just nodded dumbly and started to eat the crumbs. Ayda cocked her head at that. “Are you now in debt to yourself?” 

“Aren’t we all in debt to ourselves?” Adaine asked without missing a beat. Like  _ that _ . Why couldn't Fig have said something like that? Ayda flipped a notebook out of a holster that hung by her side and scribbled something down. “Ayda, your library is beautiful.” 

Something in Ayda’s expression lifted. “Thank you, Adaine Abernant. I am happy that you have gotten the chance to visit me.”

“As am I,” Adaine said. “This is Gorgug Thistlespring and Fig. They’re also my friends.” 

“Interesting.” Ayda nodded to the two of them. 

“I made your dad mad a lot,” Gorgug said. Fig had never winced harder in her life. “Like, just in the things I said. I think--” Jesus, he was still going? “I don’t know, I didn’t  _ try _ to, but. You know.” At least Fig couldn’t do worse than that.

“Yes. You are… simple. That is an enviable position,” Ayda commented. 

Gorgug did his classic one-shoulder shrug, a soft movement on a large dude. “What’s a telescope but a spyglass pointed at the stars?” Ayda looked at him, then she flipped her notebook open again and scribbled something down. Fig felt something that almost felt like jealousy. Gross. 

“That’s pretty good. I have to put that in a song,” Fig told Gorgug as Adaine handed Ayda a note that made her say another carefully steady string of words. 

“My good friend,” was the tail end of that sentence. 

“Can you help us with the phones? I’ll pay you fifty dollars for each and I’ll let you hold my frog.” Boggy lived in a rigged-up tank in the van and through some miracle was alive. Ayda nodded sharply. 

“Is this what I’m like emotionally?” Fig wondered aloud. “So transactional, not allowing a moment of tenderness?”

Ayda’s head whipped toward her. “What have I done that makes you think I am not tender?” Again, the intensity of her stare made Fig want to back and away get closer. Fig swallowed hard. 

“There’s a lack of vulnerability,” she said, unsure of how to respond. Ayda's face didn't move. “Uh, what rhymes with wolf?” she asked. Mostly to change the topic.

“Why?” Ayda asked back.

“It’s for a song,” Fig replied. 

Ayda studied her for a moment. “Change the lyric. Nothing rhymes with wolf.” 

Fig watched her walk off with Adaine. Her new goal in life was to find something that rhymed with wolf. 

\--

The next time Fig sees Ayda, Adaine was kidnapped.

Fig sat, covered in bruises and bandages, and explained. Her fingers danced nervously against the table as she explained how her family was terrible, how Adaine was an asset, how she just disappeared and it wasn’t their fault. Ayda was smart and they needed someone smart in that way. Fig didn’t know why she thought this would be so hard. Ayda waited, patiently, for her to stop talking, but her hands were clenching tight and her brows were dipping into a frown. The moment Fig stopped, she stood up and walked to the door. Distress bled off of every movement. 

Fig sat by her in the van. She typed furiously on the computer, changing lights and stopping reports and rigging speedometers so they could get there faster. 

“Adaine is my best friend,” Ayda said as her fingers pounded out line after line of code. Fig understood, she really did. She was also sitting useless in the car as Adaine’s shitty parents did God-knows-what. She also didn’t know what to do but keep a shaking hand on Boggy’s tank and remember every way you could kill a man.

She didn’t say this. Instead, she said, “Adaine’s my best friend too.” Ayda looked her right in the eye. Fig couldn't look away. 

“So, if the transitive property applies here, does this make us best friends?” Fig knew that desperate edge to her voice. Fig pasted a swaggering, rockstar smile on her face, the most confident she could look. 

“Of course,” she said. 

“I grow richer by the moment.” Tears dripped down Ayda’s face without warning, but Fig understood, all she could think when she saw Ayda was that she  _ understood _ . 

\--

After the battle, Fig worried how Ayda would see her. The vicious way she tore into any assailants was matched by Ayda’s intensity, but  _ still _ . She was at the sink, scrubbing blood from under her nails, watching the water run pink when Ayda approached behind her. There was a set to her jaw. 

“You fought bravely,” Ayda said. 

Fig remembered a flurry of sloppy shots, a few misfires that bruised Ayda, loud theatrics. “Not my best work,” Fig said, wincing at the memory. 

A familiar crease formed between Ayda’s eyebrows. Fig waited. “You are extremely funny and charming and you talk very loud. That’s so exciting.”

The frankness of the compliment made it impossible for Fig to deflect it in the moment. She could only blush brilliantly red. 

“Thank you,” she said, unable to keep her voice even. She giggled. She fucking  _ giggled _ . Any of the usual shield she had dropped when Ayda came close. Words came tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You’re direct and analytical and you deconstruct things in front of my eyes that make me look at things a different way. There are a lot of things I take for granted that you really think about.” 

Ayda burst into tears. Fig knew not to take it the wrong way. 

“I… don’t have women my age that hang out with me,” she said, voice steady even through tears. "I like hanging out with you."

“Keep doing it, then,” Fig replied without missing a beat. Ayda smiled wide at her, and Fig didn’t know what to do with herself. “Adaine and her sister need to sleep, right?”  _ What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? _ “Do you want to have a slumber party?” 

Ayda blinked. “You are asking me because you want to? It wouldn’t be weird for me to also want it?” Fig wanted to wrap her arms around her and tell her more compliments, as many as Ayda could stand, until she knew she was liked. Wanted. 

“I pretty much, across the board, say what I mean,” Fig said. Then she thought for a moment. “I just usually look like a different person.”

Ayda didn’t question that, mostly because she was finishing up crying. 

After a few, messy minutes, where Fig explained that, despite the name, one doesn’t necessarily sleep at a sleepover, they were lying next to each other. They both ran hot, but they were each bundled in a safe layer of sheets, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Somehow, as it usually did these days, the conversation drifted over to dads. 

“I have two dads. Gilear raised me. He’s… you’ve met him.” Fig distinctly remembered Ayda staring at her father, wedged awkwardly under a van seat. “He was always there to cheer me up. He was always gentle, to a fault. Until he found out I wasn’t  _ his _ in the usual sense.” Gilear never raised his voice. Instead, he had looked at her with something close to contempt. His voice had hissed out, hurt twisting into venom. Fig kept her breathing even. “He told me he couldn’t stand to see me. He wasn’t mad. He just didn’t want  _ me _ .” The wounds had long ago healed over, but the memory still settled in the back of her throat whenever she saw him. “And Gorthalax, my bio dad, he wasn’t there. I didn't even know about him. Then I spent all this time looking for him and he was really, really there. I get why he hadn't been there, but-- He tries, but--” She was suddenly very, very conscious of herself. “Sorry, that’s stupid. He’s so nice. They’re both there. I shouldn’t feel so mad.” 

“It is not stupid,” Ayda said it like it was a fact. Fig could believe that sort of tone. “It makes sense. You are… You make sense.” She sighed, shakily. “My father was not there. Either. Ever. He has important work to do. He forgets. It is not always his fault.” Ayda turned onto her side to fix her gaze on Fig. “Adaine said it is normal to feel bad. Even if it does not make sense. Feelings do not make sense. Sometimes I think that, if he came back, I would forgive him if he would stay. Sometimes I do not wish to see him, ever.” Ayda’s hand was lying by her head. Fig’s hand brushed against hers. 

“Yeah,” Fig said, in the way that meant  _ I understand you, I know. _ “He might just be a bad dad forever. But you could find other, cool people in the world that will take care of you.” Ayda’s pinky cautiously linked with hers. Fig felt like she was going to combust. 

“A different, other dad,” she mused. 

“Or, I mean, the emotions you wanted to get from him you could find in other places.”

Ayda’s gaze turned determined, gazing at something past the wall. “I must find these places.”

\--

Fig was going to another open mic. 

She knew she shouldn’t. She knew that she was technically a felon. There were a hundred logical reasons not to. Fig was not a logical creature. 

Glitter and black smudged across her face, bass guitar slung across her back. Sometimes she could convince Gorgug to come. Tonight wasn’t one of those nights. She slipped out of the motel with practiced grace. Fig did this way more than she should have. She was almost home free.

“Where are you going?” Fig spun around to face Ayda’s piercing gaze. She was also fully dressed, arms crossed, wide awake. 

“Uh--”

“That was rhetorical. I know where you're going. I have access to the internet. You are going to perform at a concert. You know that these concerts have gone viral?” Ayda asked. Fig did know, but it was still too new and fluttery to hold on to. She just nodded. “You're smart. You realize the danger this puts you in?” 

“Yes,” Fig said. “I know, it’s selfish. I just--” She ached for it. There was something at the tips of her fingers, waiting to be dispelled. The constant stream of notes screaming through her mind in the middle of the night. The power standing under those hot lights, bright enough she couldn’t see the single being that was a crowd, all listening to her. She could be someone there. She needed to create and needed to be witnessed. “I  _ need _ to do it,” she finished lamely. 

Ayda stared critically. She could probably stop Fig. 

“I am going with you,” Ayda said. Something released in Fig’s chest and another thing tightened. Ayda was okay with it. 

Ayda would  _ hear _ her. 

“I have never heard you perform, despite how much time I have seen you devote to it. I would like to know what all the rhyming help has gone to,” Ayda continued. Fig imagined Ayda in the crowd, quiet and burning, while the crowd cheered and crowded and jostled. 

“Uh, it’ll be loud and crowded,” Fig said. Ayda’s face pinched a bit, but she still looked determined. 

“I want to see you.” Fig knew Ayda meant she wanted to see her  _ performing _ , but Ayda’s resolution added a weight to the words that made Fig shake. Fig desperately wanted to make this good. 

She weighed her options. “I think I have an idea,” Fig said, and offered her hand out to Ayda. Ayda took it, squeezing a bit tighter than necessary. 

Fig followed the usual routes, dodging behind buildings and cars, Ayda’s hand warm in hers as they tripped beside each other. The venue, like all of them, was a dingy room full of people that the building wasn’t built to hold. The stench of smoke curled in the air around them, and through a few walls, they could hear the gathering crowd. Usually, Fig would squeeze into the crowd, packed in so tight the crowd all breathed and raged as one being. 

Today, though, she led Ayda into a side room, plastered with scratched-up posters. Fig collapsed onto a worn-out sofa and closed her eyes. The sofa dipped next to her, and she could imagine Ayda, perched carefully, studying her face. She opened her eyes and was delighted to find her mental image was right. 

“Are we not watching the other performers?” Ayda asked. 

Fig shook her head. “We’re gonna listen to them. Close your eyes.” 

In the main room, the first act got onstage. They hit the first, blasting chord, loud enough that, in the main room, you could feel it in your bones. 

A few rooms away, Ayda and Fig heard it too, but muffled through a few walls to a softer volume. The walls still shook with the noise, and Fig put her hand to it, feeling the vibrations. Ayda followed suit. She liked it.

“I do this, sometimes, when I don’t want to be around anybody,” she said softly. The singer screamed something witty and Fig smiled, wide. She didn’t see that Ayda’s eyes were trained on her, following the curve of her mouth, the slope of her brow, like an expert would look at a masterpiece. 

Fig was always moving. It was part of her brand, a messy grace smudging her movements together into a flurry of life. Her hands moved as she talked, or if she sat, her feet swung. Even in her sleep she turned. But now she was frozen, head tilted and hand on the wall. Ayda had never seen her this still. Music pulsed under their fingers. They sat there for an hour, not moving. 

Then, like a sigh, Fig melted back into the real world. She smiled brightly at Ayda. 

“How do you like it so far?” she asked. As she drifted out of her daze, her Ayda-panic returned. She was going to perform next.  _ Ayda _ was going to see her perform. 

“Incredible. It is incredible,” Ayda breathed. 

“Hopefully you’ll feel the same about my performance,” Fig said. 

“I-- I wish to see you, not just listen. Not that this isn’t good,” Ayda said. Fig wondered, idly, if this is what a heart attack felt like. 

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.” She offered her hand again. Ayda didn’t take it, and Fig didn’t take offense. 

They weaved through side staircases, and hallways, from which they could hear another band play something that sent the crowd cheering. Finally, they got to the top of a staircase. The music was booming through the walls now. Fig knocked on a door. Someone shouted something through it.

“Cover your ears,” she said to Ayda, who did so as a wave of sound crashed through the open door. 

It was the catwalk above the crowd, shining the lights down on the crowd below. Fig could see the singer on the stage, belting into the microphone as someone shredded behind her. A guy squinted at her on the catwalk, mouthing out a question.

Fig slipped into a different skin in a moment. Her shoulders straightened, and she twisted her smile into something bold. She shouted directions over the music, gesturing back at Ayda. She pitched her voice a little, crossed her arms. She narrowed her eyes and spread her smile even wider, not a glare. She learned glares didn’t work for her build. What did work was to hint at that girl on the news, the felon playing underground gigs, fine with making a fight a little too bloody. The sort of girl that would be fine with losing a fight as long as she made sure you lost, too. 

She was good at the subtlety, the too-wide smile she practiced in the mirror. The man ran to his buddies and pointed back at them. Fig looked back at Ayda, who was dutifully covering her ears, and gave her a thumbs-up. The man returned with a pair of headphones. Fig tried them on.

Suddenly, the world was zeroed in. The singer’s voice fed directly into her ears, the sound of the crowd reduced to a distant whisper. It was almost intimate. Fig turned the volume down a little, then handed them to Ayda right as the act ended. 

Ayda put them on, eyes going wide when the sound cut out. 

“Okay?” Fig asked, over-pronouncing the words so Ayda could read her lips. Ayda nodded sharply, and let Fig lead her out onto the catwalk. Then she sprinted down the stairs to take her place. 

The moment before she walked onstage was always dizzying. The adrenaline hadn’t hit yet, so it was just dread she felt. The moment before she walked onstage, she was Fig. Then her name was announced and she walked out, and she was something more. She smiled big and daring, slouching in a way that made her seem bigger, somehow. The crowd was watching her, and she knew they were, but she knew she was safe because they weren’t watching  _ Fig _ . Without any preamble, she played. 

Fig only wrote about things she knew. She knew anger, betrayal, selfishness, so she wrote raging songs. She had sung about chaos, became someone that could revel in it, playing to an audience she couldn’t see past the lights. She had tore herself apart onstage across the country, to the cheering of a crowd. 

And that night, for the first time, she sang a love song.

It was a crash of noise, melodic and loud, that she didn’t leave to settle before she followed it with her voice, the tune she had hummed to herself in the van now desperately wailed. She knew the bass wasn’t the usual solo instrument. Too quiet, someone had said when she brought up the idea. So she played it solo, no backing, letting it and her voice and some stomping mix together into something loud and triumphant. She rhymed ‘wolf’ with ‘gulf’ (it was close enough) and winked up at where Ayda would be standing when she sang it. Streaks of cheap glitter were traced by the sweat dripping down her face. 

Fig remembered it the way she remembered every performance: a rush of sound, the cheering, the place where her voice cracked or she stumbled, a sore throat, and then it was over. She threw her hands up to soak in the applause. She could just make out Ayda’s shape above the lights.

The moment she could, she ran offstage, twisting and scrambling up the stairs to the door. Ayda was walking out of the door, hands over her ears until the door closed again. 

“How did I do?” Fig asked. Ayda's eyes were wide. As usual, Fig couldn’t read her. The adrenaline was fading away, and Fig felt sticky with melted makeup and anxiety. 

Ayda’s face split into a grin. “ _ Incredible _ .”

\--

Fig’s friends were loud, and eating a truly disturbing amount of seafood, so Fig was outside. She didn’t feel like getting anymore drunk than she already was tonight. Fig was in the backyard of the house some music guy said they could stay at, shuffling through schematics for the third time that night. A squirming in her gut kept her from tearing her eyes away. She had half a mind to go back inside and drown that feeling in shrimp and noise.

Someone was standing behind her. 

Fig turned around. “It seemed like you were focusing so I didn’t say anything,” Ayda said. Fig stepped back so they weren’t nose-to-nose. “But when you left the room I didn’t know what conversation to follow. It seemed that everyone was talking but no one was listening or caring if anyone was listening to them.” Fig sat down, and Ayda followed suit. The sun was just starting to dip, and it cast Ayda in a brilliant glow that Fig appreciated.

“Sometimes you and your friends just want to be a chorus of nonsense together and you don’t have to hear each other. It just feels nice to talk really loud,” Fig explained.

“A ‘chorus of nonsense’. Okay,” Ayda said, in an unconvincing voice.

“Why don’t you like that?” Fig asked. She pushed the files away from her, focusing on Ayda.

“Nonsense is  _ bad _ .” Ayda stared at Fig’s face for a moment. “Or maybe nonsense is good? How do you feel about it?”

“There’s a time and a place for nonsense. Sometimes things get too heavy, or dark, and I don’t want to think about things, so nonsense feels like a great escape.” Fig wished she could lose herself in nonsense tonight, but the dark, heavy things she didn’t want to think about were too big for her to ignore. 

“So you’ve developed a way to escape scary thoughts,” Ayda mused to herself. Then she turned to look at Fig. “What nonsense things have you done to make yourself feel good?” 

Fig felt warm under Ayda’s gaze. “I-- I pretend to be other people. I don’t know.” 

“See, I don't get that. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else because you are exceptional.” Ayda said it so confidently . Fig couldn't let herself believe it. 

“I wish I could take that compliment, but, truthfully? I think you think I’m someone different than I am,” she said. Someone that deserved that sort of frank admiration. Someone that deserved Ayda. 

“Being mistaken about something’s nature and then discovering its true nature is my favorite thing in the world,” Ayda said. Fig was going to die. This is what death felt like. Ayda cocked her head. “Are you engaging in this chorus of nonsense because your father went missing?”

The abrupt change shook Fig. “Uh, yeah.” Fig had to break eye contact. She couldn’t hold Ayda's gaze for another second. “I had a bad day.” 

Something crashed nearby, and their noisy friends started to close in on the room. Ayda stood up and pointed off into the forest. Fig saw the vague outline of a dip where two trees fused into one tangle of branches.

“Would you like to sit there?” Ayda asked. 

“Sure,” Fig said, and picked up her skateboard.

Ayda was faster than her by a lot. Fig was panting by the time she got to the tree, and looking up, it was much higher than she thought it would be. 

“I don’t think I can get up there,” Fig forced out between each heavy breath. 

Ayda dropped from where she had already scaled and held an arm out to Fig. “May I?” Fig nodded. Ayda wrapped an arm tight around her waist, and Fig did the same, trying not to think about the heat or the closeness. Ayda scaled the tree easily, pulling Fig with her like she weighed nothing. The ground was small and distant from their perch. The bark was rough against Fig’s back. Their feet were sandwiched together. Ayda was staring, levelly, like she hadn’t just scaled ten feet. 

“See? Why would someone who can do what you just did think I’m exceptional?” Fig asked. “I mean, I just play music and pretend to be other people.”

“Those are tremendously impressive skills,” Ayda said. They talked of their plan for a few minutes, watching the wind move in the trees. 

Finally, it occurred to Fig that Ayda kept complimenting her for nothing in return. She steeled herself. She felt like she was going to throw up. 

“Hey, Ayda?” Fig asked. Ayda turned her stare back on Fig’s face. “You have said some really nice things to me, and I am terrified to say something nice to somebody,” for reasons beyond explanation, a gut-twisting feeling that made her physically wretch, “but I actually think that you are perfect the way you are.”

Ayda didn’t respond for a moment. It took Fig that moment to fully spiral. She didn’t know how she fucked up, but she had a feeling she fucked up. Fig grabbed the nose of her skateboard and jumped onto it on instinct, the instinct to run she had got from her mother, not realizing her mistake until she saw the ground rushing at her. She could only hold on as she half-fell, half-skated. The wheels scraped down the tree, and she hit the ground at full speed, only twisting to land safely at the last moment. 

At least the adrenaline was eating away at her fear.

Ayda didn’t comment on her behavior, only climbing back down at a truly inhuman speed to stand beside her. Ayda was fully facing her, digging through her coat for something. There was an intention behind her movements that made Fig scared. 

“You are about to go into the worst of it. You could die. I have to go back to get some illegal things. We only have today, and even that might get cut short. I know this might not be the right time but,” and now Ayda pulled out a  _ contract _ , with fine print and everything, “I have some information that might be actionable. For you.” 

Fig didn’t try to read the contract (a full contract?) before she signed it. Ayda expected it. Ayda had prepared a summary.

“The contract effectively states that I have information that is actionable for you, on the condition that you do not make any inferences based on that information. Basically, you aren’t allowed to think anything judgemental or critical based on this information.” Fig nodded. Hope was burning somewhere in her chest. She was afraid of it. 

“If at any waking moment, outside of combat, that you and I have been together,” Ayda was speaking in little sections, not the usual block of text. Fig guessed what came next. It terrified her. “If you had tried to… kiss me on the mouth." Fig had guessed but it still felt like getting hit in the chest. "It would have been received favorably. Bear in mind that you are under contract.” 

Fig stared at for a moment. The sky was red as the sun set, setting Ayda’s hair aflame with color. Everything was burning. She was about to go into God-knows-what. Her father was missing. And then Ayda comes in and everything is suddenly… 

“Can I have a paper? And a pen?” Ayda immediately handed them to her. Fig scribbled on the paper, then handed it to Ayda. 

It read:  _ If you make fun of me, I’ll give you a wet willy _

_ X___________ _

Ayda frowned at the paper. “This isn’t legally bin--” Fig’s hand slid to cup her cheek, and Ayda leaned into the touch. It was an unconscious movement. That fact sent everything aflame all over again. 

“Just so you know, I’ve never done this as myself before,” Fig whispered, then kissed her. 

Ayda’s lips were hot. She kissed back softly and tasted of cinnamon. Everything was truly, truly _burning_. Every nerve, the air, even the kiss felt too hot for Fig to bear. She broke away. Ayda’s eyes were half-lidded and she followed her. She was so close. It wasn’t anything like kissing the doctor or the police officer. Ayda wanted to kiss  _ Fig.  _ Actual Fig. It was so  _ much _ . 

Fig skateboarded away. 

She skidded over the forest floor. Fig needed to hide. It all felt hot. She pressed her back to the tree and pressed a hand to her mouth. She was blushing. She could feel it. 

“Is it normal for people to run away after that?” Ayda shouted to the air.  _ Oh, shit _ . Fig slunk out from her hiding place, ashamed. 

“Sorry. I’m used to being other people,” Fig admitted. She had to say something nice to save it. “I, uh, only suggested we have a party so that you would stay.” Tears started to spill out of Ayda’s eyes. She pressed her palm to her face.

“Sorry. That’s just  _ so _ nice.” It wasn’t exactly comforting for your first actual, real kiss to be followed with the other person crying, but Fig knew Ayda didn’t mean anything by it. “I will be honest. Parties frighten and terrify me, and the only reason I stayed was because you were there.” Fig felt a little guilty, but she couldn’t stop herself from clinging to what Ayda said. She stayed because of  _ Fig. _

Ayda stepped closer. “Could I get another shot at that?” The breath dropped straight out of Fig’s lungs. “It was perfect. I think I could do better.” 

Fig stepped to meet her. “Why don’t you show me?” Her voice was low, confident, and she barely recognized it. Ayda obliged, meeting her halfway. Ayda’s hand went to her face this time. They moved together, finally on the same page,  _ finally _ realizing they both felt it the whole time. Time blended hours into one, perfect moment. Fig definitely tripped over Ayda’s feet, and Ayda kept breaking away to make sure she was doing it right. Neither of them had gotten much practice, the kissing clumsy and leaves and dirt tangling into their hair. 

Really, though, it was perfect. 

It took Fig far too long to realize it was dark, and even then she loathed to separate from Ayda. Ayda looked up at her. 

“I should go. I am going to get what you need to set your dad free and then I will come right back to you.” Ayda sounded as happy with leaving as Fig felt, which was not at all, but Ayda knew what she had to do. “You don’t have to pay for it anymore.”

FIg’s eyes went wide. “No! I’ll still pay for it, but--”

“When people ask things of me, they are usually people that don’t care about me. When you ask, you care about me, which is new and exciting,” Ayda explained. Fig’s heart ached for her. She wanted to keep her here forever and love her until Ayda knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was the most incredible thing on earth.

“I want you to stay,” Fig said. 

“The only thing I want more than to stay is to do something for you,” Ayda breathed.  _ Shit, she’s so good with words.  _ Ayda stood up, brushing leaves and dirt off of herself. She looked thoroughly rumpled. Fig couldn’t help feeling proud. “Goodbye, for now. By the nine winds and the seven stars and all the secret names of the Earth and beyond, I’ll see you again. That’s my vow.” 

“Fuck yeah, is my vow,” Fig said, lounging on the roots of the tree. There were definitely leaves in her hair.

Ayda’s face softened. “God, you’re so cool. Bye.” Then she ran off into the dark. Fig was alone.

It was objectively freezing, but Fig felt burning hot. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very aware of the fact the title is like, way too artsy and dramatic considering the content. Writing thousands of words of angsty teenage fugitive bullshit is my version of self-care.  
> Now for the shameless plug. Hang out with me on tumblr @escapistcatontheinternet


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